Tulsa Volleyball Drops Four-Set Contest on the Road to SMU

Wednesday, October 12

Dallas, Texas

6:00 p.m.

Tulsa

13-6, 2-5AAC

SMU

13-6, 6-1AAC

Team	1	2	3	4	Final F
Tulsa	18	23	25	15	1
SMU	25	25	16	25	3

Tulsa Volleyball Drops Four-Set Contest on the Road to SMU

10/12/2016 8:05:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

By: Riley Ubben

DALLAS, Texas – The University of Tulsa Volleyball team dropped a four-set battle to last season's American Athletic Conference Champions and current conference leader SMU on the road this evening, taking the third set in confidently to extend the match before falling in the fourth. Both teams were evenly matched statistically throughout, with both using late runs to take wins in all but one set.

Trinity Alualu gave the Hurricane their final lead of the first set with a kill to put them ahead 5-4 before the Mustangs eventually took a two-point lead for the first time in the frame. Erica Bohannon brought TU back with a point for the final time in the set prior to a SMU run. The Mustangs outscored the Hurricane 12-7 to finish the set as the took a 1-0 lead in the match with a 25-18 win.

The Hurricane would trail by two at the same point in the second set, this time battling the rest of the way but dropping the set late, 25-23. Rebecca Reeve started a span of six straight Tulsa points via the kill, including Bohannon's third in the run that stretched the lead to three at 15-12. Emily Thorson stretched the lead up to four as she put TU ahead 18-14 before three consecutive SMU kills cut the lead down to one. Thorson would again extend the Tulsa lead, this time back to two at 22-20 before a 3-0 SMU run forced a Hurricane timeout as they trailed by one. Tulsa came out of the timeout and tied the match at 23-23 after a Bohannon kill, but SMU finished the match by scoring the next two points.

Tulsa reversed their fortune once again in the third set, this time extending their lead at the mid-point of the set on their way to a 25-16 win. Bohannon started another mid-set run for the Hurricane, recording two kills to put TU up 12-8 before SMU was caught out of rotation and an Ashton Anderson ace pushed the lead to six. Two Mustang errors allowed TU to extend the lead to eight before doing so once again late in the set on another error to go ahead 19-11. Thorson gave the Hurricane their largest lead of the set at nine at 19-11, a lead that would hold for the remainder of the set.

Neither squad could build a lead in the midway stages of the fourth set, as there were six ties where the largest lead was just one point until SMU took control. Three straight Reeve kills put TU ahead 5-1 early, the largest lead of any team in the early stages of a set, before SMU rattled off five points to go ahead by one after a timeout. Bohannon tied it up at 6-6, starting a back-and-forth that included six ties while both squads could only muster up a one-point lead until SMU went ahead two after a Tulsa attacking error before another put the Mustangs up 15-12. Reeve ended the home team's scoring run with back-to-back kills to pull within three, but that was as close as they would be as SMU controlled the remainder of the set to close out the match, 25-15.

The Tulsa defense racked up 80 digs on the evening as three Hurricane tallied double-digits, led by Brooke Berryhill and Reeve with 20 apiece while Taylor Horsfall added 16. Reeve added 13 kills to record a double-double to go along with Bohannon's 13 and Alualu's 10 kills.

The Hurricane will remain on the road this week as they travel to Memphis to take on the Tigers on Sunday at 1 p.m.

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